The basic division in the structure of criminal courts is between the lower criminal courts – the local courts, Children’s court and Coroner’s court – and the higher criminal courts – the District Court and the Supreme Court. In observing proceedings at the Local, District and Supreme Courts over a period of three days a number of aspects of the criminal justice system were made apparent. The administration, processes and practices of the criminal trial are extremely varied dependent upon the level of criminal court being observed. The distinctions between the workings of the two courts revealed a number of the differences between summary proceedings and trial upon indictment. The cases observed served to provide evidence for the “two tiers of justice” argument. Also the role of the judiciary was perceived as being particularly interesting especially the high level of discretion that they held in the Local Courts and even to an extent in the District Court primarily when there was no jury present. McBarnet’s discussion of the criminal court system focuses around the idea that the higher courts such as the District and the Supreme courts are for public consumption in which the ideology of justice is played up by the more elaborate court rooms, dress, and rigid rules of ceremony. On the other hand the lower courts focus on control. The local courts handle the vast bulk of cases with only a small proportion of criminal cases coming before the higher courts. For example the National division of cases between the lower and higher courts in 2003-2004 were 97% finalised in the lower courts while only 3% were heard in higher courts.

Lower criminal courts – Absence of legalityIn arriving at the local courts, the waiting room was full of people who had been summoned to appear for their hearing. It was noisy and extremely busy. In observing the waiting room it was obvious that people were restless and were anxious to have their case heard. The majority of cases were listed to start by 10am and thus depending on the speed of the trial process many people may have had to wait hours before their case could begin. There are no estimates of how long each matter will take and not even an attempt to make a general time allocation. Mack and Anleu also further illustrate this concept. They said that primary objective is time management and 'getting through the list' for that day. In general, the whole process in the local courts was a lot less formal than was expected with several of the magistrates even stopping proceedings to explain the facts of the case to the law students. Although Pat Carlen in her study of Magistrates Courts in England and Scotland described the court as a very formal and ritualistic social setting this is somewhat surprisingly not what was observed during Local Court visits. The court observations were more in line with those of McBarnet in that the lower courts did not uphold the strictures of “due process” and the ideology of justice. In one particular committal hearing that was observed in the Local Court, R v Sean Robert Kerr, the atmosphere was relaxed and the magistrate and the prosecutor were in constant discussion about the facts of the case and the admissibility of evidence. The accused was alleged to have carrying knife in public place. This downplaying of the crimes to less serious charges supports the emphasis on efficiency that underlines McBarnet’s analysis. Each time the prosecutor made a claim the magistrate would ask where the evidence came from. The magistrate was concerned with the nature of the evidence as they are required to determine whether there is enough evidence to commit the accused for trial as outlined under s 62 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986. It became obvious that they were short staffed and without a court clerk when the magistrate held no objection to the prosecutor approaching the bench to submit evidence. This case provides evidence for...

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...1. Which court did you attend and what was the date of your attendance? (e.g. Magistrates Court in Brisbane; Supreme Court in Sydney etc)
2. What kind of hearing did you attend?(e.g. sentence, summary trial, committal hearing, jury trial, mention, call-over etc.)
I attended an appeal against sentence. This is when the accused feels the sentence they were given is too severe, in which case a request is put forth to a higher court for the review and rehearing of evidence to change the decision of a lower court. The Crown is also able to file for an appeal if they believe the sentence given is inadequate of the crime committed. This process can only be done once a guilty plea or verdict is reached. (Findlay, Odgers&amp; Yeo, 2009, p. 315)
3. What were the charges against the defendant? Were these summary or indictable offences? How did you know this?
The charges against the accused were one count Reckless Grievous Bodily Harm.
Section 35(2) of the NSW Crimes Act 1900 describes Reckless Grievous Bodily Harm as “A person who:
a) Causes grievous bodily harm to any person, and
b) Is reckless as to causing actual bodily harm to that or any other person,
Is guilty of an offence.”
This is a Table 1 indictable offence (The Criminal Procedure Act 1986); which means it can be dealt with summarily before a magistrate in the Local Court (unless the defence or prosecution elects...

...CaseLayout of the Court and Roles of Court ParticipantsInteresting ObservationsDegree of formality in the court proceedingHow the evidence was presentedUnderstanding the Happening of a Court Room8Understanding Court ProcessReflection of Court Experience9Reference ListIntroduction:This is a report describing an observation of a criminal court proceeding that I attended at Brisbane District Court, Queensland. In this report I will state the kind of hearing I observed and the charges against the defendant; state and identify who was present in the court room and produce a brief description of their role. I will report briefly what happened in the courtroom and state the most interesting things I observed. I will then later discuss how and why I found the happening of the court room to be relatively hard to understand, and explain how and why I believe that defendants, witnesses, victim of crime, or a jury member could find the court process daunting and also hard to understand. I also provide a critical reflection upon my experience in court outlining the relevant concepts discussed in class 1012CCJ Police, Courts and Criminal Law.
Court Details:Name of Court Visited: District Court BrisbaneCourt Located: 363...

...Legal Institution and Methods:
Criminal and Civil Court Structures and Legal Personnel
This assignment contains ..............................words
Introduction
This assignment will discuss and compare the court structure, legal personnel and their functions and the type of cases that are brought before criminal and civil courts.
Criminal courts
The criminalcourt system has many levels of superiority (refer to diagram 1.1 in Appendices). Lower courts are bound by all superior court decisions within the hierarchy. The Magistrates court is the lowest court in the criminal system; they do not create binding precedence and therefore are not bound by their previous decisions (Book1). The Magistrates Court is usually the first point of contact for approximately 97% of all summary offence cases, such as motoring offences, minor assault and low value criminal damage. The maximum fine that the Magistrates can impose is £5000 and/or 6 months imprisonment for a single offence. The Crown Court has much more authority and sentencing powers as they tend to concern themselves with more serious cases, which need a great deal more legal knowledge. The maximum sentence that can be imposed by the Crown Court is life imprisonment and there is no limit to the...

...Juvenile and Adult Courts
The juvenile justice system shares many of the same components of the adult justice system. Historically both adults and juveniles were tried in the same courts and if convicted they both served out their sentences in the very same facilities. Over time, the system changed for youths however; there remain as many similarities as there are differences between the two justice systems. In this text, one will look at an overview of the juvenile justice system as well as a point-by-point comparison between the adult and juvenile systems. One will also discuss the implications for juvenile offenders and the trends in increasing use of waivers or remanding youths to adult courts to be processed. Finally, one will look at the repercussion of doing away with juvenile courts.
Overview
The juvenile justice system did not begin to take form until the first of the 20th century. Up until that time youths were tried in the very same courts as adults and if convicted, they were held in the same detention facilities. It was finally determined that a separate justice system with their own courts and holding institutions for juveniles would better serve delinquent youths. The primary function of the juvenile justice system is not conviction but adjudication. It...

...Court Visit Report
Case CIV499511 - MANUEL E DELGADO JR VS SEQUOIA UNION SCHOOL DIST1
1. Judge V, Raymond Swope, clerk, court reporter, sheriff, defendant - SEQUOIA UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT PRESENT WITH COUNSEL JOHN SHUPE, Plaintiff - MANUEL E DELGADO JR PRESENT WITH COUNSEL DAVID SECREST, MATTHEW ZITO, PRINCIPAL FOR MENLO ATHERTON HIGH, WITNESS KAREN ANN BRESLOW, WITNESS CLAUDIA KISPERSKY1 and 16 jurors were present in thecourt.
2. Sketch TBD
3. Plaintiff, Mr. Delgado lost employment as a schoolteacher. Plaintiff is suing the district on the grounds of racial discrimination. This is a jury trial and jury consisted of 16 jurors.
4. Plaintiff’s attorney, counsel David Secrest is presenting evidence to showcase the systematic discrimination his client faced over a period of two years while he was working at the school. Evidence included communication plaintiff had with his doctors, his school staff, union attorneys etc. Lot of emails and letters were presented as evidence of communication. WITNESS MANUEL DELGADO, PREVIOUSLY SWORN, RESUMED THE STAND AND TESTIFIED FURTHER UNDER DIRECT EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY SECREST1. If the counsel question was not permissible, the opposing counsel placed objections with judge. Judge decided whether to overrule, suspend or admit questions accordingly. Plaintiff was repeatedly asked to limit to only direct answers to questions. Clerk had organized all the permitted...

...﻿Court Observation
October 30, 2012
On September 27th I went to Branch 6 to watch the criminal trial of the defendant Lord Wilson. It was making out to be a weeklong trial and I made it on the second to last day. All I knew was that it was a case involving drugs and had been in the making for a while. When I arrived at the public safety building to listen to the criminal trial taking place I learned firsthand that things never seem to stay on schedule. A recess was taking place when I walked in. While I was sitting there I overheard another person in the courthouse talking about how they heard testimonies from witnesses the day before. That’s what I was looking forward to and now I was worried that I wouldn’t get to observe anything too interesting. During the recess I had some time to take in what was going on around me. The judge was not in the court room. I assumed he was probably in his chambers going over information from the trial that called for the recess to begin with. The prosecutor and the defense attorney were both present in the courtroom, occasionally talking to one another while they waited for the judge to return. The defendant was in the room as well, sitting next to his lawyer waiting for things to resume. There were also a few police officers sitting behind me and from what I could tell at least one was involved in the case against the defendant. While I was sitting there Thomas Gerleman, the defense attorney came over...

...The first court I decided to visit was at 393 University Av. on September 11th after my classes and got there on time for a court session at 12:00 pm. The security was very strict. They looked through my backpack and made me take everything out of my pockets. After the security check we started looking for courtrooms with trials going on and I discovered that not much was happening at that time. A very nice woman told me that there was an interesting case happening in room 702 so I headed down to the 7th floor from the 10th. In front of the courtroom there was a family waiting for the trial to begin. We engaged in a conversation which was very helpful because they were part of the trial and I got a lot of background information on the case before it began. The victim told me that she was hit by a car at a crosswalk on her way to school, and seven years later the case has finally begun. She explained that she doesn’t remember anything from the day of the incident and that she has long term health problems. When the attorneys arrived we all proceeded into the courtroom and I was surprised by the size of the room. The judge arrived shortly after into the small courtroom and we all stood up to honor him. Once the case was on its way, it was interesting the way the attorneys were addressing each other using the words “my friend”. The defense attorney seemed like he was trying to complicate things with technicality about the doctors that examined the...

...Court Issues
JoyAnn Czudek
CJA/394
June 24, 2013
Kevin Dzioba
Court Issues
The criminal justice system has changed tremendously over the decades and so has society. It is important that the court system make changes to keep up with the times. There are parts of the court system that need to be identified to have these changes occur. One of these areas is the way courts are managed including their problems and resolutions. A new trend that has emerged is victims’ rights. Victims can now intervene in the cases before sentencing. In the future, courts could lose cases to arbitration and mediation also known as the private sector of the courts. Understanding these changes and issues are important so that the courts can correspond with the trends as they occur. The courts are an important piece of the justice system. In order to meet the domains of the criminal justice system the courts evolve with the new processes and trends as they happen. Below the paragraphs will analyze and explore future management issues dealing with technological innovations and how the new technology is impacting the courts. Along with how victims’ rights are impacting the courts. One of the main issues that the courts are facing in the future is the possible division between the private law sector and...